Observing a trend of retail dumping and whales accumulating, Tom Lee added another 65K ETH to his portfolio and mentioned that Ethereum is nearing the end of its winter. Fundamentally and technically, Ethereum is building bullish momentum.
Retailers or wallets holding less than 0.01 ETH have collectively dumped about 0.9% of their ETH since mid-December 2025, when wallets that hold 100–100K have been accumulating it. According to Sanitment, a crypto-analytical tool, these Ethereum whales accumulated 756.95K in just the past 2 days.
Retailers panic sell as fear takes over
When the retailers panic and start selling their holdings in the open market, that is when the institutions and whales buy the retail dump at a strategic discount level. As shown in the fear and greed index below, the market is in fear as the fear and greed index hits 35 on its scale.
As fear swarms over the market, the cofounder of Fundstat, Tom Lee, also made an acquisition of 65,341 ETH while publicly stating, “Ethereum is in the final stages of mini-crypto winter.”
It’s not just the whales’ activity that suggests that Ethereum is nearing the end of a crypto winter, but even the staking activity shows that more than 38 million ETH is currently locked in the network, and it has created a supply crunch.
Bullish momentum builds on HTF and STF ETH charts
It’s not just fundamentally that ETH is bracing for a bull market, but technically too. Ethereum is showing bullish momentum, building on both higher time frames and lower time frame charts. For instance, the 4-hour chart below shows ETH prices making higher lows as it trades inside a broadening wedge. The relative strength index line, which keeps ascending, shows that the bullish momentum is building in the short time frame.
Meanwhile, ETH is about to break out from a bull flag on the weekly, which has been forming since August 2025. Now that ETH has rebounded in the bull flag for quite some time, it is time for it to break out from this pattern.
Priced at $2,160, ETH is nicely poised for a major breakout as it tests the upper trendline of the bull flag. Once ETH completes the bull flag and breaks out, it will face major resistance at $2,400, and if it breaks above that level, it will rise further.
Usually a breakout from the bull flag usually produces a spike that is equal to the height of the pole. If ETH follows this conventional breakout pattern, it will eventually end up hitting values close $5,000
